Hi fellow
divers, where were you on Sat. Nov 23? Mark Smith and I were diving at
Whitney Point on Hood Canal, and had beautiful weather, super good viz
diving, water flat as glass and the whole place to ourselves!

We did two
really nice dives. On the left side of the launching ramp, there are two
abandoned pipe lines which run out from shore underwater. These are just
loaded with all kinds of life. The short pipe runs out aways and ends
in about 30-40 feet of water. You turn right and swim a little ways and
you come upon a bunch of concrete blocks, milk crates, etc., that some
nice people put up to make an artificial reef. There were a lot of critters
hanging around this. You follow the other pipe on out a long ways. We
found the end of it finally down at 95 feet. Every so often there are
supports which hold the pipe. The interesting things are tucked under
these. We saw several giant Pacific octopi each sleeping under their own
support. All tucked into a very small place taking a nap. We got right
down on the bottom on our bellies, shined our lights into the little hole,
and all curled up in there were lots of tenacles, and a big eye looking
at us. Besides these guys, we saw lots of fish, crabs, but didn't see
any wolf eels.

The viz all
of this time was a good 30 feet! Absolutely wonderful dives. In fact,
we got to swim right IN and ALONG with a big school of these dark blue
fish about 8 to 12 inches long. We just swam right into the school and
they were all around us moving right along. It reminded me of a school
of fish on a field trip!

Our first
dive was to a max depth of 95 feet, for 59 minutes. Between dives, there
were some students and instructors who showed up for a class. All the
way from Roseburg Oregon, if you can believe it. When they left, Mark
and I did our second dive over on the right side of the launching ramp.
There were two small plastic pipes which ran out under water. We followed
them out and saw lots of eel grass, smaller fish, and even another octopus
or two. That dive was to a max of 75 feet for about 45 minutes. The water
temp. was about 50 degrees the whole time.